Wales overcome Kazakhstan to start its 2026 World Cup qualification campaign with a victory and maintain the undefeated reign of Craig Bellamy as a manager.
Dan James and Captain-On-The Night Ben Davies marked each side of a Askhat Tagybergen penalty before the Rabbi replacing Matondo assured that there was no major upheaval at the Cardiff City stadium.
The dragons have never qualified for the consecutive tournaments of the World Cup final and the three points here will give Wales a lot of hope of making history in a group that also includes Liechtenstein, northern Macedonia and Belgium.
⏰ ft | 🏴 3-1 🇰🇿
A winning start for our @FifaWorldCup Qualification campaign ✅
– Wales 🏴 (@cymru) March 22, 2025
Dan James opened the scoring in 10 minutes when its deviated strike found the net after Kazakhstan has done a waste cleaning of danger.
He reported a comfortable evening for Bellamy’s side, but things were far from simple because visitors looked dangerous in the spells.
Kazakhstan had failed to score in all of its Nations League B campaign this season. But shortly before half an hour, they were level when Tagybergen found the net from the penalty point after Connor Roberts was penalized for handball.
This sparked a last nerve minute from half-time for Wales, but a few moments after the restart of Davies, going beyond the skipper in the absence of the injured Aaron Ramsey, returned home from a corner to restore the host’s advance.
From there, Wales looked widely at ease and wrapped things in time when Matondo ridiculed in its first international senior objective to seal the victory.
He gives the men of Bellamy a platform on which to build and they will enter the shock of Tuesday with the north of Macedonia, which beat the Liechtenstein 3-0, full of confidence.
